| Jonathan Parry - Neapolitan Sixth structure |

Neapolitan Sixth part 1 (1982) - harmonies of metre
(turn up sound to hear extract)

© Jonathan Parry 1982 (& 2004)

This piece explores the idea of harmonies of metre. It takes a syncopated figure within 4/4 metre:

And develops it into metres ranging from 2/4 to 6/4. It does this by extending it and contracting it around the central syncopated top note as follows:

This developed figure is repeated throughout the piece in this way, but it is given a sense of life and purpose by varying the syncopated top note and occasional notes leading up to it:

The two pianos then go into different metres at different times from each other - they play in harmonies of metre (shown in the chart below). Piano 1 plays shorter metres that fit within piano 2.

The structure of each large-scale section progress logically either by shortening and/or extending the metre of piano 2 (and hence the complementary patterns of piano 1). The mood of the piece changes as it progresses because the underlying harmony follows a sequence of changes from Ab7 to Cm/g to Fm to Cm/g to Ab7 to Cm/g.

It sounds carefully worked out and I guess it was but the initial idea came in a flash - I more or less played a passable version into my multi-track tape recorder in one take. (I used to improvise a lot more then - something I want to get back to!).

One final point - it's not what's conventionally thought of as a 'Neapolitan Sixth' - I got it wrong! (Obviously wasn't paying enough attention in my harmony class at University.) It's actually a 'German Sixth' but who cares - they're only abstract labels. Sounds just as reminiscent of Naples as Germany to me!!! If you're worried by this imprecision (which I doubt) don't be - the piece is not imprecise and, if such things are important to you, I can give you a mathematically correct way to define the chord sequence (see 'understanding tuning').

As an example of the metrical structure, here's the scheme for Section A (Ab7 - Palindome)
(the metre is shown in 1/4 notes, top figure only i.e. 4 means 4/4) :

Pattern / Number of beats
Piano 1 against Piano 2

Pattern 1 / 12 beats
4 + 4 + 4 against 6 + 6

Pattern 2 / 10 beats
3 + 4 + 3 against 5 + 5

Pattern 3 / 8 beats
3 + 3 + 2 against 4 + 4
(also 3 + 2 + 3 against 4 + 4)

Pattern 4 / 6 beats
3 + 3 against 3 + 3
(leads to 4 + 4 + 4 against 3 + 3)

Pattern 5 (= Pattern 3) 8 beats
(as above)

Pattern 6 (= Pattern 2) 10 beats
(as above)

Pattern 7 (= Pattern 1) 12 beats
(as above)

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